I've thought about a system like this... but the problem is, you can never get entirely base-10 because the Earth isn't so kind to us. It inconveniently revolves ~365 times for every time it circles the sun, so if you went entirely base-10 your 'days' wouldn't line up with actual daylight.
If you can't go entirely base-10, and only go halfway like the French... then it doesn't really buy you any convenience.
Why would you prefer to keep Earth's revolution around the Sun as the base unit, instead of Earth's revolution around its axis? I would argue that the latter is more relevant for ordinary people. (Consider that Imperial Russia was using the fixed-365-day Julian calendar up to 1918, and they didn't seem to be acutely concerned that calendar months were drifting increasingly out of sync with actual seasons.)
I'd suggest adopting a 1000-day year instead. To make the transition easier, the word "year" could be deprecated entirely, and the unit of time would simply be called "kiloday" or "k-day". This proposal would significantly improve everyone's life by eliminating brainless smalltalk about whether it's particularly hot or cold this June compared to last year.
> I'd suggest adopting a 1000-day year instead. To make the transition easier, the word "year" could be deprecated entirely, and the unit of time would simply be called "kiloday" or "k-day". This proposal would significantly improve everyone's life by eliminating brainless smalltalk about whether it's particularly hot or cold this June compared to last year.
Whenever I'm at a party facing the choice of reorienting the conversation towards either the weather or calendar reform, I inevitably go for the latter. Chicks love it.
If you can't go entirely base-10, and only go halfway like the French... then it doesn't really buy you any convenience.